2012 county & metro area estimates released today
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  2012 county & metro area estimates released today
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old timey villain
cope1989
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« Reply #50 on: March 17, 2013, 10:09:05 PM »

Growth in Metro Atlanta has definitely slowed a bit compared to the breakneck pace before the recession, but it appears to be bouncing back. People still seem to want to move here and lots of businesses are relocating and adding jobs, so hopefully it's the start of a return to form for my city. I think Atlanta is well positioned for future growth, as no single employment sector is dominant and our quality of life and cost of living is favorable- for now.

Interestingly, the exurbs are slowly being choked off because of dramatically slower growth while the urban core is growing faster than it has in decades, so good news there. One more cool thing is that a lot of the state's growth is coming from minority births. I think Georgia's fast growth will continue for a few more decades in addition to North Carolina's. I look forward to the day when presidential contenders will criss cross these two large, diverse states in the hopes of winning two valuable electoral prizes.
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Snowstalker Mk. II
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« Reply #51 on: March 17, 2013, 11:06:04 PM »

Another interesting question is whether/when Texas could pass California.  Using a straight line model, this could happen sometime in the 2050's.  I'm not sure straight line growth is appropriate here because inland Texas may well hit its ecological capacity long before then, but let's say it's possible.  Could we be looking at this apportionment come 2050?



Seems unlikely. It's pretty much impossible for Texas's growth to go any faster, and keeping up its current pace for more than another decade or so will be very difficult. Additionally, Texas's economic strength is based entirely on the strength of the energy sector, particularly oil. In the long-run, it's doubtful the current oil boom (either in production/extraction or in demand) can continue more than another decade. The environmental stresses you mention will also start to come into play eventually, but that's only really important for isolated outposts like Midland/Odessa and Lubbock. There's also the immigration factor: Many border towns are growing quickly due to immigration, but it's hard to say how immigration will continue over the next 40 years. I would have to assume immigration will decrease over time, especially given the poor economic state South Texas is in.

tl;dr: Texas will continue to grow quickly for about a decade, then slow down, primarily for economic reasons.

In addition, I doubt that the exponential decline of the Midwest and Northeast will continue; it's already starting to slow. Once the Sunbelt starts to shed people thanks to a combination of global warming and lack of jobs, they'll head back to Yankeedom.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #52 on: March 18, 2013, 02:00:02 AM »

So I actually bothered to look it up with my own eyes, and while 500 people per square mile is emphatically the exurban fringe, the ratio of subdivisions to rural uses is higher than I had imagined.

Inside the dotted line is Buckingham Township, in Bucks County PA.  497 people per square mile.



And here's a view from the ground: new houses on one side of the road, corn on the other.



...

I think the lesson here is that 500 people per square mile is a very unnatural density- the largest-lot subdivisions will be higher, anything purely rural (even including hamlets, and in wet climates) will be lower.  You need a hodgepodge to hit that mark. 

If you get fine-grained enough, down to the block, 500 people per square mile is too low I think.  But at a township level it's more defensible.
The township doubled in population between 1970 and 1990 and again between 1990 and 2010.  I don't see how it could not be considered urban (don't be confused between the Census Bureau definition of urban - which is essentially non-rural; and terms like suburban.

The 2010 density is 606 ppsm.  The Philadelphia Urbanized Area includes most of the western part of the township (west of York Road) expanding northward from (Doylestown).   I'll refer to northwest as "west", away from Philadelphia.   About 2/3 of the population in the eastern half is in the Philadelphia UA, but very little of the land.   The subdivisions are thicker to the west, so I suspect that enclaves are being closed up and added to the UA, while to the east you have exclaves.   There is also a strong of hops so that the UA just reaches across the Delaware into New Jersey at New Hope/Lambertville along US 202.   Note about 1/4 of the employees in some of the census tracts work out of state.   It is about an 1-1/2 into NYC via either I-78 or I-278 (which would be the quicker route into Brooklyn or Staten Island), so I'm guessing it would be more NJ than NY.

The numbering of the census tracts shows the development of the area.   When census tracts are modified, they are renumbered, so as to avoid comparing different areas between censuses.

The tracts are 1045.02, 1045.03, 1045.05, 1045.06 (with .01 and .04 missing).

So originally it was all tract 1045 (census tracts have a target population of around 5000).  The first split would have been between 1045.01 to the west, and 1045.02 to the east, which still exists.  Then it is likely that 1045.01 would have been divided between 1045.03 to the south, adjacent to Doylestown and 1045.04.   And then 1045.04 would have been split between 1045.05 and 1045.06.

1045.05 is the middle part of the western half somewhat pie-shaped.  The subdivision on the western edge is prominent in the satellite view because the trees haven't grown up around the houses yet, so probably 10 years or less.  This area has an average family size of 3.6, which means most families have children.  Since few families have 4 or 5 children any more, you have to have 2 in most families to get that close to 4.  Compared to 1045.02 to the east, this area is better educated, less German, and less likely to have been born in Pennsylvania.  So the area to the east which is less developed must have a residual population that is native to the area (at least Bucks County.
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Brittain33
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« Reply #53 on: March 18, 2013, 10:43:36 AM »

Where is the population growth in Fulton County taking place? Atlanta or the conservative suburbs?
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old timey villain
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« Reply #54 on: March 18, 2013, 11:30:57 AM »

Where is the population growth in Fulton County taking place? Atlanta or the conservative suburbs?

Unfortunately I can't locate any recent city or census tract population numbers, but I'm guessing that most of Fulton's growth is occurring inside I-285



North Fulton is probably doing better than other suburbs but the growth up there has slowed a bit. South Fulton actually had a massive housing boom in the middle of the last decade but it got hit HARD when the bubble burst. OTOH, Atlanta has really been filling in with apartments and new homes so it's doing well. Sadly, a lot of poorer AA's are being pushed out by wealthier whites, and I'm really not sure how that will affect the overall county vote.
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Franknburger
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« Reply #55 on: March 18, 2013, 11:33:39 AM »
« Edited: March 18, 2013, 11:54:58 AM by Franknburger »

I think the lesson here is that 500 people per square mile is a very unnatural density- the largest-lot subdivisions will be higher, anything purely rural (even including hamlets, and in wet climates) will be lower.  You need a hodgepodge to hit that mark.  

You could end up with a 500 people per square mile density in an urban area if it's a mostly commercial district. There's a suburb in Minnesota with around that density that consists of a couple townhomes and a few car dealerships (the total population by the way is less than 500, minuscule place in both population and area.) Minneapolis' Downtown East neighborhood by the way has a density of 237 people per square mile.

To underline both points, here another German example (view from ENE to WSW, older photo, probably from turn of the millennium, but the best I could find):



Definitely (sub-)urban according to demographic trends...


.. except for the fact that population density is being kept below 500 / square mile by
 

Using a parish-level approach, Großziethen (pop. 7,380, upper right corner of the older aerial photo above) would probably qualify as urban. Schönefeld proper (pop. 3,200, to the south of the Berlin border marked in red in the aerial photo below, airport area commences immediately south of the motorway) however, would still be counted as rural.

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they don't love you like i love you
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« Reply #56 on: March 18, 2013, 11:50:23 AM »

FWIW, I suspect the reason 500 sq/mile is used as a cutoff is because you have lots of counties that have a small city that has borders that extend far beyond the actual populated area. Lots of places in Alaska like that for example. Similar to how the county I grew up in has a population density of only 35 people per square mile but the city is more urban than anywhere in many counties with 20 times the density, it's just the city and LOTS of empty space.
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RI
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« Reply #57 on: March 18, 2013, 11:12:45 PM »

2010-2012, 1% increments:


2011-2012, 1% increments:
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RI
realisticidealist
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« Reply #58 on: March 18, 2013, 11:35:48 PM »

Change in Growth Rate, 2011-2012:
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jimrtex
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« Reply #59 on: March 19, 2013, 07:47:50 PM »

FWIW, I suspect the reason 500 sq/mile is used as a cutoff is because you have lots of counties that have a small city that has borders that extend far beyond the actual populated area. Lots of places in Alaska like that for example. Similar to how the county I grew up in has a population density of only 35 people per square mile but the city is more urban than anywhere in many counties with 20 times the density, it's just the city and LOTS of empty space.
They went to a density-based measure in 2000 specifically because formal boundaries did not correspond to land use, either the boundaries extended beyond the developed area, or vice versa.

Reading the federal register it appears that the 500 ppsm was to permit automated delineation.

Before 1950, the Census Bureau simply defined places (towns and cities) with population above 2500 as urban, and everything else as rural.  Beginning in 1950, the census bureau began defining urbanized areas around cities of over 50,000 to recognize that there were often unincorporated suburban areas adjacent to large cities.  The delineation of urbanized areas was not automated.

The 1990 census was the first to completely cover the country in census blocks.  In defining urbanized areas, analysts were permitted to identify non-residential urban uses of census blocks, and calculate a density based on the residential area - using a threshold of 1000 ppsm.

In 2000, the process was automated, and urban areas were defined based entirely on density, with no regard to city or town boundaries.  Urban areas were also defined for much small populations - replacing the old definition based on city boundaries in small town America.

To permit the process to be automated, a density of 500 ppsm was adopted - which avoided a need to determine land use.   A typical census block in a suburban area might have a density of a few 1000 (5 acres X 16 houses x 2.5 persons/household = 5120 ppsm).  Even an area with acre lots would have 1600 ppsm.

In addition, the area of moderate density must be adjacent to an initial core of over 1000 ppsm, or reachable through jumps and hops, which will disqualify isolated small areas that might reach the 500 ppsm.
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memphis
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« Reply #60 on: April 08, 2013, 10:28:19 AM »

They added Benton County MS to the Memphis metro. That decision belongs in the deluge. It's an hour outside of town and at least a half hour beyond any signs of civilization. We're not Atlanta. People don't commute across three counties here.
The lede story in the Memphis paper today is about Benton County and its inclusion in the metro area. I would provide a link, but it is behind a strict paywall. Amongst the highlights of Benton County pointed out:
No Wal-Mart
No stoplight
No movie theater
No golf course
A population density of 21 people/sq mi, 1% of that in Memphis, and just 1/3 as in MS as a whole and barely higher than Idaho.
"So rustic and out of the way is Benton that when lawyer John Booth Farese asked a classroom of high school seniors a few years ago if they had ever eaten in a sit-down restaurant, only one of the 22 students responded in the affirmative."
Gotta love that dude is named after Lincoln's assasin.
About 800 people there work in Shelby County. Much higher than I would have thought.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #61 on: April 08, 2013, 05:31:26 PM »

They added Benton County MS to the Memphis metro. That decision belongs in the deluge. It's an hour outside of town and at least a half hour beyond any signs of civilization. We're not Atlanta. People don't commute across three counties here.
The lede story in the Memphis paper today is about Benton County and its inclusion in the metro area. I would provide a link, but it is behind a strict paywall. Amongst the highlights of Benton County pointed out:
No Wal-Mart
No stoplight
No movie theater
No golf course
No jobs. 

That is why they commute to Memphis.  I bet bunches work for Fedex.  They can work at night so they don't have to commute during rush hour, and then have a bit of an acreage out in the country during the daylight.
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